Morning business news

Financial Services Ombudsman Bureau launched - A new state body, the Financial Services Ombudsman Bureau, has been established by the Government under the Financial Services Authority of Ireland Act 2004. The new Bureau is independent of the Central Bank and the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority.

The Ombudsman will sort out unresolved complaints from customers of financial service providers. The bureau will investigate, mediate and adjudicate.

Dr Con Power, chairman of the Bureau, says the Financial Services Ombudsman Bureau incorporates both the Ombudsman for Credit Institutions and the Insurance Ombudsman of Ireland.

The powers of the Bureau include setting compensation levels for consumers, levying the industry to pay for the system and laying out rules under which complaints are adjudicated. Dr Power said there would be no overlap with the Central Bank's or IFSRA's powers.

Complaints forms for the ombudsman can be downloaded at www.fincancialservicesombudsmanbureau.ie

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IFG reports loss for 2004 - Financial services group IFG has this morning reported a pre-tax loss of €1.4m for last year after what it called a poor performance in the pension release business.

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Alltracel revenues soar 355% - AIM listed pharmaceutical company Alltracel has reported an operating loss of €4.4m for last year compared to a loss of €2.8m in 2003. But its revenues jumped by 355% for the year to €4.6m compared to €1m the previous year as the company's brand partnership programme extended into 40 countries.

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Q1 Exchequer figures better than expected - Figures released by the Department of Finance last evening show there was an Exchequer surplus of €880m in the first three months of this year - this is four times what the Government had expected to have. Consumer spending was up in the period and government departments spent less than forecast. The Department of Finance said it was pleased with the figures. For the whole of this year, Finance Minister Brian Cowen is forecasting a deficit of just under €3 billion.

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NYMEX to launch Northwest Europe gasoil futures contract here - NYMEX, the New York Mercantile Exchange, has announced that it will launch a Northwest Europe gasoil futures contract for 'open outcry' trading in Dublin on Friday. The contract will be listed for 18 months, starting with May 2005. In February NYMEX closed its 'open outcry' trading in crude oil futures in the IFSC, because of low trading volumes and also because the traders were not happy leaving London, the oil industry's European base. 

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Oil prices drop from record highs - Overnight oil prices have slipped to just below $57 a barrel on the possibility of rising crude supplies in the US as well as from OPEC producers. US light crude traded 29 cents lower at $56.72, bringing losses from yesterday's $58.28 all-time high to $1.56, or 2.7%. Brent dropped 2.5% to $56.20 a barrel. US crude is about 30% above levels at the end of 2004 on concerns that strong growth in global consumption is putting strain on world supplies.

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Rover talks stall - Crunch talks aimed at sealing a rescue deal for UK car maker MG Rover - and saving 6,000 jobs - have stalled. Officials from the Department of Trade and Industry and the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation have been in talks about a rescue deal in China, but a UK government official said MG Rover's finances were worse than either it or the Chinese company had realised. One business school professor, quoted by the BBC this morning, says that Rover is like a spotty-faced kid - it is too big to be small and too small to be big.